Reaction: Tag Clouds and the Case for Vernacular Visualization

This paper is a very interesting read as it talks about tag clouds which has its application in many technical and non-technical areas. Author first gives some background knowledge about vernacular visualization and then talks about how tag clouds,originated in Web 2.0 environment,can be applied on wide range of data inputs and patterns.History of tag clouds suggest that they have been prevalent from a very long time, wide range of its usage has been realized lately.Primary purpose of tag clouds is to provide a visual overview of collection and importance of text.Author explains this with the help Milgram experiments, followed by Flanagan;s Search Referral Zeitgeist and flickr. I agree with author's view that "Tag Clouds function as aggregators of activity being carried out by thousands of users, summarizing the action that happens beneath the surface of socially oriented websites. Overall its an interesting read.